Despite Ayer Selectman Frank Maxant's recent comment that "the highest use of Vicksburg Square is as a brick quarry," the buildings there are protected from being torn down by their listing on the National Historic Register.

At a recent Devens Economic Analysis Team meeting, DEAT member Paul Green made similar comments to Maxant's.

"At the beginning [of the analysis of the economics of Trinity's Vicksburg Square proposal] all we heard was that 'we need to save the buildings,'" Green said.

Green said, however, that over the course of DEAT's investigation and analysis, the questions the team has asked have been "all about the people; we hardly talked about the buildings."

"We talked about the impact on schools, the rents, how [Trinity Financial] did their study," but very little was said about the buildings themselves, Green said. "Buildings have a life...a beginning, middle, and end, and when their purpose is fulfilled, you knock them down and put something else up," he said.

Peter Lowitt, Devens Enterprise Commission land use administrator/director, said, however, that Vicksburg Square is a National Historic Register building "protected by a programmatic agreement signed by the Department of Defense, MassDevelopment, and the Massachusetts Historic Commission, which enforces the agreement."

"The test," Lowitt said, is that "you've marketed the property and that there's no other feasible use for it before you're allowed to take anything down." He said that the Devens Enterprise Commission would have to get approval from the Massachusetts Historical Commission before they could do anything to Vicksburg Square.

Lowitt predicted that the historic Georgian revival buildings, constructed of red brick and steel with slate roofs, would deteriorate slowly.

"I've seen the sisters of these buildings on Corregidor Island in the Philippines; they were designed to take direct hits from bombs. They are very solidly built," Lowitt said.

Vicksburg Square is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the federal list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects that have been determined significant in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering and culture. The Massachusetts Historical Commission is the agency responsible for administering historic preservation funds and programs for the state.